Agenda

Len Kasday

JB: Len Kasday, who chaired The Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group
and authored WAVE tool, passed away. He has done a lot of good work and will
be greatly missed.

HB: He has been a very positive contributor and a bright light. I feel a
great loss. He was far too young and he will be missed.

JB: I hope that there will be additional information available. A memorial
service will be held next week. There have been a lot of comments online.
Comments can be passed on to the family.

Outreach updates:

JB: Gave a presentation at 3:00 a.m. to teleconference meeting of the W3C
offices program. W3C has a number of international offices and does outreach.
Often, offices are approached by governments. Need to have a meeting about
certain questions that keep coming up. This is related to draft that we will
discuss later on.

HB: Last week, he went to Lernout Hauspie Kurzweil group and did a presentation.
He talked about user agent guidelines.

CV: Has received several messages about possible adoption of guidelines in
Germany. I will send a message to the group about this next week.

AA: Ran two workshops. One was introductory workshop and the second was a
more in depth workshop. Had about 30 people at each workshop.

Amsterdam Event

JB: As long as have information sharing meeting and not decision-making meeting
and no opposition from others, we can work in Amsterdam on June 22. I will
put it out and if I don't hear by Tuesday, I will extend informal invitation
to those primarily to those affiliated with EU. This would be a meeting to
discuss promotion and adoption of guidelines by those countries involved
in the E-Europe initiative. Would anyone be able to attend? Carlos, I know
that you can't attend. Is anyone opposed to date and format?

(No one opposed)

Corporate Implementation Plan

JB: You should have had note from Carlos on his last version of corporate
implementation plan. This is in an archived message from May 12.

CV: I recorded one comment from Lila.

JB: Consensus? To they have to agree or cooperate?

CV: cooperation

HB: This may be something that departments do not have anything to do with.

JB: expansion

AA: Are there departments that this does not apply to?

HB: This might be the mailroom

AA: This could be part of a larger department.

JB: The next one?

CV: Should I change to cooperation?

JB: yes

CV: The next section, first bullet.

JB: Maybe the two of us could work on the wording offline?

CV: That's fine.

JB: Did you do code changes?

CV: yes

New Appendix on Developing a Policy on Web Accessibility

JB: Go to cover page for business case. Go to EOWG home page, you will find
link to business case. Instead of burying information, I have started an
appendix. Go to appendices cover page. I have added, "Developing a Policy
on Web Accessibility." How do you feel about having separate appendix? How
about developing separate appendices so that can point people to each piece?
The primary pages could be leaner.

AA, SS, HBj, CV: ok

MK: Want to make sure that there is enough information.

AA: I was rereading Australian government policy, and having a document like
this, will be very helpful.

JB: Could also link from policy reference page. I've been trying to provide
relatively neutral statements, highlight an issue, describe pros and cons,
and provide examples.

SS: Provide statement of issue, rationale, and example. What is the issue?
Not doing it is the issue?

HBj: Would you make link indicating levels? I like the way the headers read.

JB: If you have comments, go ahead.

AA: Clarify headings a little bit. "Specify a Conformance Level."

JB: If you have other ideas, put on list. Let's look at the content that
is covered. Does this cover the biggest issues?

HB: It's an admirable goal, given the way these requirements are evolving.
Build this to incorporate unanticipated requirements. Need to work with one
stable document. New requirements need to get changed to code.

JB: I need to talk to Wendy. When WCAG 2.0 comes out so that this would be
backwards compatible.

HB: Future proofing is a good idea but it may be difficult to implement.

CV: Is it feasible to say target level A and then later on state AA?

AA: One of the difficulties is that there are old documents on a site. May
want to say when historical documents can be A level, but after certain date
all documents should be AA.

JB: W3C does not have an official position on what policies organizations
should develop. Carlos, I want to comment on what you said. The idea on having
more than one stage of conformance can be helpful to organizations. As people
rework a site, they can incorporate less urgent retrofitting.

MK: Some companies might have contracts with others. It might not be in their
contracts. Getting them to use the tools can be a problem.

CV: The way I read this, it sounds that one level is A and another AA.

JB: Make it cleaner? Not so many choices?

CV: The way I read it, it seems like stages.

LC: Could you give several examples?

JB: Should we advise as to what is best organizational fit? Ask them to think
about multiple stage or single stage.

HBj: Can these be combined?

JB: I will reflect in change log and new draft. I want to respond to comments
by AA and MK. Andrew, when you were saying that the headers should be cleaner.
They seem wordy. Marja, the two things that you mentioned are missing: 1.
review subcontracts for Web site development; 2. review software used and
consider whether it would set a policy on which software is used.

MK: or what contractors use

JB: In U.S. this would be difficult. Usually specify result rather than how
it is done.

MK: Even if want to update yourself later on?

HBj: Would you put in company policy that you make it comply to certain
guidelines? How to construct would not be a point. We want to have it so
that we can update it ourselves.

AA: Only time could be specific is to say we want lotus templates, dreamweaver
templates, etc. Really interested in the end result rather than tools.

HBj: I agree

JB: Sounds as if we are saying the same thing.

MK: We have problems because our contractors are using tools that have errors.

JB: Here's another question. It would be easy to expand policy document to
encompass everything. Where do we stop? Should we have section that says
look at implementation and consider whether policies should include training
for new Web masters?

AA: Keep it simple and not reiterate because we have a suite. Some people
like to specify assessment tools or evaluation approach. This can cause problems.
For example, Australian government only specifies Bobby. Second, prioritizing
types of pages such as home pages, navigation pages, disability groups, index
pages, summary pages. Index and summary pages might be more important to
have accessible than entire document.

HBj: I agree on first part but don't agree on second part. It could be dangerous
to say one part of document is accessible and one part is not.

AA: I'm not saying this.

HBj: I don't agree. If want to put document on Web site, entire document
should be accessible. This is the wrong message.

AA: I was thinking about retrofitting. I can't fix all pages at once, but
can prioritize pages.

SS: I agree with Helle. AA's comment is good. But should not be put out as
a policy.

JB: Once one introduces assumptions or priorities, it opens a slippery slope.
The assumptions could go astray especially when have inadequate resources.

HB: I like idea of making all abstracts accessible rather than all documents
be accessible. Perhaps have a feedback mechanism on the requests.

JB: We may be wandering off scope. Especially in WCAG group, the idea of
putting extra attention to summaries is being discussed. The concept of
selectivity of what do to some pages is emerging.

JB: Government and other large Web sites are being selective.

HBj: A lot of old document pages are accessible because they are plain html.
Each company should have own ideas about priorities. It is dangerous on how
to do it.

JB: I am willing to draft a statement that we can discuss. Libby and Jean-Marie,
do you have comments?

LC: If we suggest prioritization, does this give them permission?

JB: What if we say new, old, core? Can say be very cautious about making
assumptions about what people with disabilities need? What about talking
about why segregated Web sites fail?

AA: A lot of people create text-only pages. Do not provide segregated pages.
Pages such as text-only pages get out of date and do not have information
contained in all pages.

JB: I will try to capture spirit of conversation. Jean-Marie, what do you
think?